LAX Wednesday before Thanksgiving?

[LSUmiss]

We are considering a trip to DLR the week before Thanksgiving & plan to come home the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I've never flown out of LAX. Anyone have experience w/ this? Is it a nightmare to get to the airport & fly out of LAX on the busiest travel day or the year?

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

It's a nightmare on a random Wednesday. So on the busiest travel day of the year it's got to be beyond nightmare.

Can you fly out of Orange County (SNA) or Long Beach? If you have to go with LAX allow LOTS of extra time, LOTS!

I used to work in Orange County and wound up flying out of LAX a lot. Rental cars are NOT on site so plan on 30 minutes minimum to get from the car drop to the airport. Traffic around the airport is stop and go and security lines can be LONG (I have literally seen SW lines out the door and down the sidewalk!)

 

[jdisnut]

We are considering a trip to DLR the week before Thanksgiving & plan to come home the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I've never flown out of LAX. Anyone have experience w/ this? Is it a nightmare to get to the airport & fly out of LAX on the busiest travel day or the year?

I travel way too much and can say unequivocally that LAX is the most difficult airport in the country. Everything will be slow. Everything will take longer than you think it should. It's pretty much a nightmare, especially if you have a rental car. It can take up to an hour in times of bad traffic to get from the car-rental facilities to your terminal. It's just the reality of it.

That said, I'm not suggesting you go far out of your way to choose a connection over a nonstop flight to avoid LAX for another airport. Ultimately, an nonstop flight out of LAX is going to be better than a one-stop originating out of BUR or ONT or any of the other airports in the Los Angeles area. Just grin and bear it!

 

[scrapquitler]

We are considering a trip to DLR the week before Thanksgiving & plan to come home the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. I've never flown out of LAX. Anyone have experience w/ this? Is it a nightmare to get to the airport & fly out of LAX on the busiest travel day or the year?

The Wednesday of Thanksgiving is THE single busiest travel day of the entire year. Everywhere in the US. I think that LAX will be extremely busy. I'd probably try to avoid it by flying the day before or on Thanksgiving day if possible. I've flown (To Orlando) on Thanksgiving Day and found that it was fairly quiet, since most people traveled on Wednesday. I suspect that the same will be true at LAX.

 

[Lesley Wake]

Yeah, I agree with all of the above. LAX is just horrible. Really really horrible. Whenever I can I use on of the 4 other LA area airports (Burbank, Ontario, Santa Ana, or Long Beach). BUT, if I had the choice between LAX with a nonstop and one of those with a stopover, I would go with LAX.

Plan on getting there with plenty of time to spare. If you have a rental car, you need to consider whether it will be easier to drive through the main airport area, drop off the family and luggage, and send the driver to return it. I think that will depend on how many people and whether they can handle their own bags.

 

[rwdavis2]

Security can be slow on regular day let alone a holiday. There's Long Beach and John Wayne as alternatives.